Good morning,
What are we waiting for?
Last week we were looking at the promise that the Lord was telling his followers "So you, too, must keep watch! For you don't know what day your Lord is coming.(Mat.24:42) That statement has been true since the apostles were still on the earth, but God has not given us any kind of information that would tell us when He would come. In general terms we also have been told that “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day.(Mat.24:37) For those of us who are aware of what is going on in our world, the more we become aware that our Enemy has been quite successful in turning people all over the globe self centered and proud and have also become sure that their hatred is what is needed to deal with people who don’t meet their standards. The hatred and control battles that we see world wide sounds very much like what we are told in Revelation Chapter 6 about what God will allow in the seven years of the Tribulation. Something even more reliable is what Ezekiel in chapter 37 tells us, that Israel will become a recognized nation, that will all fall in place in one day. That has already happened on May 14, 1948. That was a promise that God kept for his own special people the Jews. As I understand the timeline that follows in chapters 38 and 39 we find the next stage of God’s plan will occur when the enemies of the nation of Israel come charging down on them with the plan to completely destroy the nation and all the people living there. The exciting thing about that is that these hateful enemies will be totally destroyed and the nation as a whole will return to trusting God.(Ezk.39:22)
God’s time line for what is coming next becomes very clearly laid out in years and days for his next step in destroying Satan’s control over the world that the LORD spoke into being. When the Apostle John as an old man was invited into Heaven by Jesus in order to “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.”(Rev.4:1) The Lord showed John the various stages of God’s plan that would end in the complete destruction of all the people who would not believe in God’s love or obey God’s commandments. The Lord also showed John something that I was never taught when I was younger. God showed John, I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands.(Rev.7:9) When John asked who these people were, he was told, "These are the ones who died in the great tribulation. They have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white.(v.14) At another point in his journey he was told, to rest a little longer until the full number of their brothers and sisters “their fellow servants of Jesus who were to be martyred “had joined them.(6:11) Later John was told, The nations were filled with wrath, but now the time of your wrath has come. It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants the prophets, as well as your holy people, and all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest. It is time to destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth.”(11:18) After these seven years are over and Satan has been defeated he will be thrown into the bottomless pit for a thousand years. Jesus will come to earth and will rule and reign on the earth for the benefit of God’s children and those who were still alive at the end of the Tribulation. Satan will be let out one more time and he will try to defeat Jesus one more time. He will be defeated and sent to live in the lake of fire for the rest of eternity. There is much more that could be said, but this is what we have to look forward to in time and for eternity in Heaven and the New Earth.(Rev.21,22)
Revelation 22:20 "Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
Roy Wisner
